


Your Name

by cucumber_of_doom



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternative Universe - Bad Handwriting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2505764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cucumber_of_doom/pseuds/cucumber_of_doom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is thirteen when the name appears on the inside of his left wrist. Sadly, his soulmate's handwriting is unreadable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Name

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[翻譯]Your name 你的名字](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2548070) by [Naii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naii/pseuds/Naii)



> I posted a similar ficlet on my [tumblr](http://cucumber-of-doom.tumblr.com/) a few months back and decided to clean up the typos. I won't write anything new for this verse, but feel free to do if you want.
> 
> I am aware that Hannibal's handwriting, as seen in the show, is quite neat, but please pretend it is that typical doctor's scrawl.

Will is thirteen when the name appears on the inside of his left wrist. It doesn't hurt, nor is it supposed to. It goes like this:  
One day he wakes up to get ready for school and there are black lines etched into his skin that weren't there the evening before. He squints at the name scrawled on his skin, trying to make out what it spells - if it is maybe one of the girls in his class - but as hard as he tries, he can't tell. If he looks close enough, the first letter resembles a C. Or an H. But maybe it is an F. There is no way to tell for sure. The one thing Will Graham knows about his soulmate is that her handwriting is not just terrible but a complete mess.  
When his father pounds on his door, telling him to get up, he hastily pulls down his sleeve and hurries. He can hardly tell that he can't even read his soulmate's name, can he?

°

“What is her name?”, the girl asks him, trying to sound casual about it but failing miserably.  
Will is seventeen and Melinda's hair smells like strawberries. He really likes her but has seen the way she writes her notes in class with clear, rounded letters. There is no way the scribble belongs to her.  
“I am not sure,” he says after a while and his right hand clutches his wrist tightly.  
“Oh”, is all she says before leaving. 

°

Knowing your soulmate's name is supposed to make it easier to find them but no one ever tells him what to do when there is no way to tell where one letter ends and the next begins. After being shot and leaving the police he takes classes on what someone's handwriting can tell you about the person but it doesn't bring him any closer to whomever is waiting for him. Creative, probably and most likely male. Graphology is no exact science, after all, especially when trying to find one's other half.  
Will moves from Louisianan to Virginia and takes up wearing long sleeved shirts on the rare occasions he leaves the house he fills with stray dogs. Animals don't care about his inability to make something out of the lines on his skin.

°

By the time Jack Crawford introduces him to Hannibal Lecter, Will has given up on finding his soulmate and if he doesn't think anything of the way the doctor's eyes light up in interest as Jack introduces them he can blame it on a lifetime of disappointment.

°

It isn't until he manages to catch a glance on Doctor Lecter's notes in his practice some weeks later. Not that he can decipher what is written across the sheet but he knows that unreadable chicken-scratch. He sees it every day when getting dressed, spread across his skin. Will knows he is utterly screwed.


End file.
